By way of background, inflatable structures—such as bounce houses, slides and the like—have become increasingly popular over the years for recreational purposes; particularly for children. This growth in popularity has led to an inflatable rental industry through which companies deliver and set up these structures for special events, then subsequently return to deflate and haul them away. This is primarily because inflatable structures are relatively durable and easy to transport and store. However, because these structures are typically composed of thick, strong PVC, vinyl or nylon, and because their relative sizes and dimensions can be fairly large, they have the potential to be very heavy—oftentimes weighing hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds.
Each inflatable structure is typically stored and transported as a deflated, substantially cylindrical-shaped roll so as to be as compact and portable as possible. Traditionally, upon the delivery of an inflatable structure to an event site, the rolled inflatable must be laid on the ground, then manually unrolled by hand or using some other manual rolling device. Given the weight of the rolled inflatable, this unrolling process often requires multiple people and can be fairly time consuming. Additionally, upon deflating the structure after an event, the flattened inflatable must be subsequently rolled back up before hauling it away. Thus, as one can appreciate, this process can be very strenuous. In fact, many people in this industry find themselves having back-related medical issues within just a few years of routinely rolling and unrolling these inflatable structures manually.
Similar problems are present in other industries that involve the manual rolling and/or unrolling of large and/or heavy rolled objects—such as carpeting, for example.
Solutions have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested complete solutions, and solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art. Thus there remains a considerable need for devices and methods for cost-effective means of reducing the amount of manual labor required to roll or unroll large or heavy rolled objects.